4:58 p.m.
We are successfully seated at a restaurant across the street from Dul Ho. The house specialty is 2-liter bottles of 7-Up. Deanna practices her rudimentary Mandarin Chinese with the waitress. Donovan tries to make her smile. We sit at a large round table and spin the lazy susan and eat each other's food.

"It's been my experience that white Americans dining at traditional Chinese restaraunts will be seated as far away from the natives as possible. This place was cafeteria sized. Five tables of Chinese businessmen and familes were seated in a row at the back wall while we were seated as far away from them as possible. The hostess put us near the door with dozens of vacant tables seperating the 2 cultures. I quickly noticed something even more unusual after inspecting them closely.. Each table had a plastic 2-liter bottle of 7-up.  When the waitress asked us what we were drinking... I couldn't resist. I thought we might win them over with our unique drink order. Perhaps get invited to sit near them. Or better yet some inner sanctum. I imagined the waitress approaching us, gesturing over to the tables at the "far east" of the room and saying in broken english "Mr. Wang compliments your good taste and would like you to join him at his table".  It never happened. We got a good laugh though. It reminded me of the old Tom Hanks flick "Joe Vs. the Volcano" & the islanders that went batty for orange soda." - Donovan